Creepy poster from a hijab manufacturer

[elfs]

Khazan Studio is a boutique fashion designer that sells hijabs for Muslim women. What creeps me out is the poster they use as their advertising.

My reaction in the first seconds was to be impressed with the quality of the eyes as they're drawn, but as I looked I realized that, for women who are being encouraged to "express themselves," the artist has deprived his models of voices.

Comments

[shunra.livejournal.com]

First, it's a hijab (not hajib).

Flashback to growing up being told that women's voices were "pubic" ("erva" - the pubic region; kol be'isha erva) and recently it has become standard(ish) among orthodox Jewwish groups in Israel to prohibit women on stages, radio, and photographs (ads and news reports alike; the one that involved deleting SecState Clinton from the war room picture? that's the standard in a variety of newspapers and on billboards in the ultra-orthodox neighborhoods.)

Maybe the silencers from all religions should get together. Personally, I'd prefer if they got together somewhere in the path of a natural disaster. I'll talk to my (outspoken, publicly active, and often hijabi as well) Muslim girlfriends about that.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I knew that spelling, too. Fixed, thanks.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

One of the funniest things about this poster is that it has illustrations of realistic(ish) figures, which are prohibited by (some versions of) Islam.

I'm going to file it in my mind as "greedy marketers in a society that doesn't like women" rather than as "Islam".

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

I went to the actual site, and was surprised at how engaged and happy the model looks. She's looking right at the camera, making "eye contact" with the viewer. And, admittedly, the scarves are *gorgeous*.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Correction: Islam prohibits Allah from being portrayed in any form (no graven images and all that). Islam also prohibits Mohammed from being portrayed in realistic fashions, as the Prophet wanted people to worship Allah, not him (or his image).

Instead, Islam has gone overboard (fancy that), claiming to ban all images of all people everywhere at all times. Worse, instead of correctly heeding the Prophet's wishes (not fetishizing his image), it seems that Muslims have gone and fetishized the absence of Mohammed's image in any form.

(I'm really quite fed up with religion-radicals of all flavors. I'm just ranting about Islam because it's the topic-at-hand.)

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification!

In my defense... ...I was told about the prohibition on all images in Islam by a docent (guide? tour leader?) at the Dome of the Rock mosque in Al Quds (the one right next to Al Aqsa), back in 1982 or so, by way of explanation for the breathtaking feats of calligraphy, that were-but-weren't-quite images.